At some point in our adult lives we cross an invisible border where we begin to understand what a daunting — at times awesome — task it is to raise a child, and begin to marvel at the fact that all involved in our own upbringing survived it with only minor scrapes and bruises. 

My respect for my mother has only grown over the years.  When I think about the odds of this woman from some seriously humble origins raising a police lieutenant and two educators (my brother C. teaches Math and I consider my whoring about a way of educating the masses, and I used to teach English occasionally, too) when we all should have been bandits and rascals, it boggles the mind.  How did three bad boys turn into two fairly good fellows and one globe-trotting whore with a heart of gold the end?  It's like a fairy tale!

Truth is, I might have asked such a question a few years back, before my dad's battle with cancer, and then my mother's, immediately after my dad's death.  But even beating cancer doesn't tell the story.  Survivors come in all stripes.  But the questions my mother asked herself, and her God, and her family and friends in her time of struggle were questions of conscience, and while she retained every ounce of cussedness we've all come to expect from her, her sufferings didn't mire her in self-pity.  Instead they strengthened her sense of self, deepening her faith and teaching her new ways to put it into action.     

It's no surprise to me that one of the first things she wanted to do when she retired last fall (after getting a profile up on Match.com), was to go through training for home hospice, so that she could "give something back," repaying through service to others what others had given of themselves for her. 

Our relationship has both broadened and deepened in the last few years.  She's my hero, my mentor, my fashion role model, and I'm so lucky to be able to call her my mom.